Wicked Wide Ones: Lite Up The Night

This image was created on my very first trip to Iceland back in 2016. I had arrived in the coastal town of Vik after dark and thought it would be a good idea to take a trip down to the famous black sands beach. I wanted to see how the stars looked, hoping that the remoteness of Iceland and the beaches' southern facing direction would provide darker skies than anything I'd seen back home up to that point in time. When I arrived and let my eyes adjust to the darkness, I started to see some weird lightness in the sky. Full of excitement and what I thought it might be, I took out my camera and shot a long exposure, and sure enough the northern lights had begun to come out and play. Only barely visible to my eye at first, they began to strengthen overtime. I thought it was also the perfect opportunity for some steel wool light painting, so I took out my dog leash and whisk, stuffed the whisk with steel wool, and lit it with a lighter. I then began to swing the whisk in a circle as I spun around for the duration of the 8 second exposure creating this light show under the northern lights.